A BENEFIT claimed by one in 12 people in Wales has been described as “past its sell-by date” by the Disabilities Minister as she defended Government plans to reform the system.

A BENEFIT claimed by one in 12 people in Wales has been described as “past its sell-by date” by the Disabilities Minister as she defended Government plans to reform the system.

Proposed changes to the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) will have a bigger impact in Wales than other parts of the UK, as seven of the top 10 local authority areas with the highest rates of claimants are in Wales.

Campaigners on disability issues have expressed concerns that the planned changes will leave some people worse off.

Plans to introduce the Personal Independence Payment are currently going through Parliament and, if passed, would mean new assessment tests for claimants, who would also need to have had a condition for six months, double the current period.

Disabilities Minister Maria Miller, pictured, said a consultation on the proposed changes, which attracted more that 5,000 responses, had shown support for reform of DLA.

She said: “There’s now a growing view that reform is needed, whether it’s from the Government or from the opposition or from leading disability groups.

“There is a need to bring the DLA into the 21st century. It’s a benefit that’s now 20 years old.

“It’s one of the biggest benefits we have, but I think it’s really passed its sell-by date.

“The self-assessment and the lack of an organised system of review make it hard to ensure that it gets to the people who need it.”

Currently, the DLA is paid in two components, one for care support and one for mobility, and recipients are paid a higher, middle or lower rate for care and a higher or lower rate for mobility. Ms Miller said it had been estimated that the current system was paying out £600m in overpayments, in which people receive a higher level of support than they need.

Conversely, it is believed some claimants are claiming the lower allowance when they should be receiving the higher level and are missing out on £190m.

Ms Miller said the reforms were needed to ensure that the money went to those who needed it most.

She said: “With DLA, the challenge is making sure this benefit is helping people to live independent lives.

“I think one of the most concerning issues about DLA is that you’re more likely to be in receipt of higher-rate mobility for drug and alcohol dependency than blindness.

“I think that tells you how much inconsistency there is in the system.”

Disability campaigners are concerned that the assessment criteria will be toughened up and more claims will be refused, leaving disabled people without support, after the Government announced plans in the 2010 budget to save £1.4bn on DLA by 2014-15.

Ms Miller said the plan was for the Government to keep spending on DLA at the same level as this year by keeping the rate of growth under control.

She said: “Over the last 30 years we’ve seen a 30% increase in the amount of money paid out on DLA.

“The real growth area has been back pain, up 80%, and in terms of people claiming for allergies, which has increased by 200%. Those are really big areas of growth.”

Ms Miller said the self-assessment process had led to inconsistencies, which the new criteria aimed at ironing out.

She said: “The criteria are available for anyone to read and comment on and have been developed by disabled people and disability groups to act as a proxy for the amount of extra cost disabled people incur.

“There will be testing through the summer to ensure that [the benefit] is getting to people who really need it.”

She added that the Government would be taking lessons from Professor Harrington’s report on the work capability assessment, particularly ways of incorporating fluctuating conditions into the assessment.